Author Archives: Carrie

November Beauty

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I shall not sing a May song.

A May song should be gay.

I’ll wait until November

And sing a song of gray.

I’ll wait until November

That is the time for me.

I’ll go out in the frosty dark

And sing most terribly.
And all the little people

Will stare at me and say, “That is the Crazy Woman Who would not sing in May.”
-“The Crazy Woman” by Gwendolyn Brooks

 

I know for some people the days in November get too dark and too gray, but  I always try to remember that November is a lovely month in so many ways.  It is a month full of gratitude for the season and it has that snuggly,cozy feeling as the days become longer and darker.

This month we are celebrating:

  • November 1 All Saints Day
  • November 2 All Souls Day
  • November 10/11  Martinmas and Veterans Day (technically both on the 11th but our town had a community celebration for Veterans Day on the 10th)
  • November 19 St. Elizabeth
  • November 23 Thanksgiving
  • November 27  I have it in my calendar to make Advent Wreaths in preparation for the first Sunday in Advent, December 3rd.  (Hard to believe Advent is almost upon us!  If you want a little peek ahead, try my Advent Pinterest Board)

Learning and celebrating:

  • Learn songs for a Martinmas Lantern Walk
  • Use transparency paper to make window silhouettes and transparency cut-outs and lanterns.
  • Bake bread on the cold days
  • Look for bird’s  nests as the trees lose their leaves; make feeders start to be filled all the time, make treats for the birds
  • Dip leaves in glycerin or beeswax and preserve them
  • Cook things with cranberries, corn, and pumpkin.
  • Learn some Thanksgiving songs and practice so you can play them after Thanksgiving Dinner!
  • Find a place to volunteer to serve Thanksgiving dinner
  • Make Thanksgiving Baskets and leaving them on your neighbor’s doorstep!
  • Gather greens and natural items to use for an Advent Wreath.  We do this at church from the areas surrounding the church and it is quite lovely!
  • Find books, cozy blankets and pillows, and mark off half days for just reading and lounging around. Pull out candles, homemade Martinmas lanterns, salt lamps  and scatter them around.  Cuddle up and read with some fabulous tea or hot chocolate.
  • Find handwork projects that you will love and get started.

Other Ideas for this month:

  • Get a small jump on gifts for the holidays. Here is my Pinterest Board of holiday gifts to make
  • Make sure you are still getting your Vitamin N and get out in nature!
  • Dream a little about the next school year in homeschooling ❤

Blessings and love,
Carrie

Nurturing Parenting: The 12-14 Year Old

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One interesting thing that Waldorf Schools typically do in sixth grade (at least in the United States) is to have the students make dolls.  These are  not put together the way a professional dollmaker would put a doll together,  but more from an organic process that almost follows the development of the embryo itself and forshadows the physical development of the human being as it comes to life.  From loving nothingness to a small tightly wrapped ball (the head), expanding into the universe as a defined trunk  then with limbs taking shape (arms with a thumb and legs with feet)  and finally  a little being with twinkling eyes,  beautiful hair and clothes.

This fulllness of the human being is then echoed in seventh grade physiology, in eighth grade studies of reproduction, and in tenth grade in the studies of embryology.  This beautiful expanse of the human being is coming at a time of intense fragility of the 12-14 year old.

It is easy to think that once one is through the nine/ten-year-change, that the floodgates open wide. I have discussed some of these issues before in a series on portals.  And yet, there is still a twelve-year-old change to follow, and a fifteen/sixteen year change, which to me may be the most dramatic of them all.

Much like the toddler stage of life, young people of this age need protection at this time.  This is the time of the middle school grades in the United States, and often noted to be a very difficult time due to differences in physiological development, peer cliques, and I believe that the use of social media has compounded these issues. Being rather stuck between wanting to be more adult-like but also have the freedoms of childhood is difficult for the child, but also for the parent!

There is a certain fragility and uncertainty in these years that are like no other. Balancing the freedoms often provided to these group and the structure is a navigational process. I believe this age group needs protection from their limitless energy and wanting to do too much.  The limits of this age group in doing activities has essentially been eliminated. In the past, one might start playing sports in middle school (and you didn’t get much play until 8th grade) or doing more than one activity in high school. Now children in middle school have been playing sports for years and doing many activities.  They need help setting guidelines for sleeping, healthy eating, and more, and helping in meeting those guidelines even when they would rather stay up extraordinarily late or eat only sugary snack food.

So, in parenting this age group, please consider limits.  Children of 12-14 should not be treated like an older teenager with all the fun and none of the responsibilities.  While there is a campaign to“Wait Until 8th” for a smartphone , many twelve to fourteen year olds are navigating social media sites and media usage.  Media should not be limit-free for this age group!  Sending nude pictures, sexting, and using social media and texts in order to bully  a peer is sadly not uncommon in this age group because again, many of the children this age have no limits in terms of hours on their devices, and parents are not checking phones and computers.  One way to think about setting limits on media is to use a device like a Disney Circle; you can see a review from 2015 here; I believe now certain sites can be more easily blocked than what this review has stated.  Some parents have no idea what their child is doing on line or that they have multiple used profiles on Instagram or are on Snapchat or other sites. Devices such as these can trail usage across multiple devices.

Children of this age may need help being active in a free and easy way.  Many children this age like to “hang out” but the days of 12  and 13 year olds zooming bikes around a neighborhood or playing pick up games may not happen as much in the past.  How can this child be active without or in addition to an organized sport?  This typically requires free time that has no agenda. Having time to just be protects children and gives them space in this fragile state where they are emerging and trying to hear their own voice and may even give them time to connect with you, the parent.  You are still more important than peers at this age. In fact, I think the ages leading up to the fifteen/sixteen year changes may be one of the times you have the greatest influence.  So don’t give up! 

Lastly, help your child not to be a terrible human being with peers.  No, we can’t police everything, and yes, perhaps we were not policed in our peer relationships at this age in the past, and yes, friendships come and go in the middle school years as middle schoolers try to find their own voice and where they belong.  However, I think because so much of the free group play of the early years and early grades has been lost and replaced by adult-led, structured activities, children this age are coming into the more socially difficult middle school years with even less social abilities than in previous generations.  Help your child to learn what a loyal friendship looks like; is that friend really a friend or not; what bullying and toxic behavior looks like, talk to them about peer pressure in the areas of drugs and alcohol and sexuality.

Provide areas where children MUST show responsbility, whether that is nurturing the home, helping to care for a younger sibling, help with elders in the family, run a tiny business from the home.  Too many of the children this age have many toys and a run of what they want to do with no limits, but yet have no responsibility outside of themselves in terms of contributing to the family.

Most of all, just love them.  These years bring many changes in development in all areas being human.  Remember that this age is not 17 or 18 though, and as opposed to guiding an older teenagers with check-ins, they may need more parenting and limits than an older age group.  Being involved in this fragile, almost back to toddlerhood stage of needing protection is how it should be. It is a fine line between hovering and meddlesome and being helpful; boundaries are key to navigating this.  If you need help, I highly suggest you make friends with parents who have older children that you admire.  It can be helpful to hear what worked really well at this age, especially in those older teenagers that might have a similar personality to your younger child.

Blessings,

Carrie

 

Rhythm Renewal!

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I am very excited that this may be the week that some things straighten out and we will have less emergency driving for medical issues amongst our family members. Being closer to home is ALWAYS helpful in re-establishing rhythm.  I have heard from many of you that this autumn has been difficult for varying reasons, and that we all need a rhythm reboot!

The benefits of rhythm are so astounding in forming a peaceful family life.  Having a clear flow to the day ( a flow, not a rigid minute-by-minute schedule) helps everyone approach the day with understanding and cooperation.  The only person who can determine the rhythm that is right for your family is YOU and your family members.  No two families are alike, and no two families have the same daily and weekly rhythm.

I can’t totally guess what our rhythm will look like once we have our four-legged family member home and the amount of care that will entail, but I do know basically for now our rhythm looks somewhat like this:

Mondays, Tuesdays, Fridays:

  • Morning Rhythms
  • High School Main Lesson
  • Second Grade Main Lesson (includes physical activity outside)
  • Seventh Grade Main Lesson
  • Lunch and Rest
  • Writing or Health
  • All together projects
  • Barn Life for the older two children on Tuesday, possibly other days as needed. Fridays I usually stay home and clean and get ready for a peaceful weekend.

And on Wednesdays it looks like

  • Morning Rhythms
  • High School Main Lesson
  • Seventh Grade Main Lesson
  • High Schooler Outside Class/ Lunch
  • Barn Life

And on Thursdays, our crazy day

  • Morning Rhythms
  • High Schooler at outside class
  • Second Grade Main Lesson
  • Seventh Grade Main Lesson
  • Lunch
  • Music classes/Music Lessons

I wrote a seven-part series about rhythm in 2012 that might be of help to you if you are trying a rhythm reboot!

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Part Five

Part Six

Part Seven

Homeschooling From Rest: The Rhythm of Health

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One of the major reasons we began homeschooling, and  subsequently were drawn to Waldorf Education, was actually about health.  The healing that can come from Waldorf Education is tremendous.  The health of the future adult when you parent and educate children in this developmental appropriate way makes a difference in a chaotic world that is largely hostile toward the protection and gradual unfolding of children.

We wanted time and space for rest and so our children got enough sleep, enough time outside, warming meals at home, and the ability to progress education in a way that we saw as developmentally appropriate moving from the physical body and work of the will to the work of the head; a well-rounded education inclusive of all of the arts.

In order to show that our genuine and authentic reasons for homeschooling are true then, is to devise a rhythm around health.  This may look different in every family, and I think is easier to do if your children are younger or if your children are perhaps more homebodies.  Being home and taking care of health is much easier than taking care of health whilst on the go every second.

Some suggestions for devising a homeschooling rhythm from rest and health might include any of the following:

  • Earlier bedtimes
  • Rest and nap times
  • Limited outside the home activities
  • Planning a rhythm that alternates between out-breath and in-breath activities
  • Planning your day around you, the homeschooling parent’s, need for physical movement and the children’s need for movement.
  • Meal planning and the shopping of healthy, whole foods from local suppliers
  • Planning homeschooling days of the week with an eye to a day for health, whether this means to you a day outside hiking or being out in nature or a day to run to a member of your health care team for you or your children
  • Healing touch – this is easy to work in during the homeschool environment.  Hand and foot massages, back rubs, and hugs are great places to start.
  • Daily spiritual practices
  • Planning quiet times throughout the day
  • Schooling outside as much as possible
  • Spending time with pets during school
  • Aromatherapy

I would love to hear your suggestions!  How do you plan your homeschooling rhythm from rest and focus on health?

Blessings,
Carrie

Overflowing

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What a fall, y’all.  😦  I have gone through periods in our 10 years of homeschooling (2007, six year old kindergarten year to tenth grade this year),  where life has been overflowing (more on that term below!). This particular autumn, which has brought serious terminal illness and  illness with long-term recovery  to  family members and emergency surgery for our daugher’s horse with a super long recovery period to come, has landed our family back into the overflowing zone.  It has been an emotionally and physically taxing time of emergency drives, plane flights, and hospital visits.   It is really difficult to homeschool upper grades and high school on top of everything else. There hasn’t been much of a rhythm this month as I wait and see what each day brings.  There is no pity in this at this point; it is just life and it is just part of homeschooling long enough.

I truly believe that if  you homeschool for a long enough period of time, you  just are going to face times when life is overwhelming.  I like to re-frame this thought as “overflowing.”  For some reason that just sounds more positive!  Overflow is just the reality. If you haven’t ever hit that due to pregnancy, birth, illness, the overwhelming needs of one child compared to the others, family illness, terminal illness, finanical troubles, divorce or more, that is so wonderful and amazing!  But I think many homeschooling mothers do go through this at one point or another. Some of us have more bad years in a row than others.   But, the great thing about going through struggles many times is that you know that you will make it out onto the other side of it. You know there isn’t much to hold you down because you have simply been there, done that, and not only survived, but flourished.

There aren’t any easy answers as the situations are all so individualized.  I think the main way I get through, honestly, is to be honest. My husband is in tune with me, even if he doesn’t handle the stress the same way.  I will tell people outright I am having a hard time. I will lean on my friends to hear me and just let me vent.  I will ask for help and take that meal.  I am absolutely much better about it now, in my late 40s, than I was in my 20s and 30s.  I absolutely know my limitations now and when I am hitting the wall and am so grateful for community.

Sometimes there really isn’t copious time for self-care during these crisis spots  but even snatching a few minutes to sit down and relax, take a bath, etc can really be helpful. I am lining up a some self-care things  for when I see the light at the end of the tunnel and am not spending hours in a car dealing with emergencies. The other thing I have noticed for myself is that there are certain times of the day I feel more discouraged or overwhelmed, and to try to build in some self-care things around those times.  For some people, this might be at night.  For me, it seems to be in the morning after waking up and thinking about the day that lies ahead.

So, in honor of this dubious season of seasoning, I have rounded up a few back posts about dealing with life that might resonate with where you are now.

Chronic anger and overwhelm with children under the age of 9

Surviving Bedrest and Being Homebound With Medically Fragile Children

Postpartum Depression

Struggling

Social Isolation for the Stay-At-Home Mother

I HATE The Mother That I Am

The Overwhelming Year  and The Antidote To The Overwhelming Year

Homeschooling Burnout

The sun is shining and it is a glorious day! May we all shine bright in the darkness.

Blessings,
Carrie

 

The Big List of Boundaries

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One thing I  said  in a previous post is that some families I know have not hardly any boundaries that their child has to adhere to.  I actually am abig  believer in boundaries because I think that boundaries promote health.  This is how boundaries help a child become a functioning adult:

  1. Children need to learn to take responsibility (ownership) for things.  In my family, I have talked a lot about the principle of Ultimate Responsibility, which I think came from the military realm.  We have no reason to argue over fault, we just work together as a team to fix it.  We take responsibility to help even if we didn’t cause the problem.   Responsibility is ownership for oneself in addition to outside things.   Ownership leads to a sense of freedom, because we have choices to fix things, problem solve, work with others, or walk away.
  2. Boundaries free us from people who treat us poorly or who are toxic.  We know where we begin and end, and that these other people are separate and not our responsibility to carry.
  3. Life choices have consequences, and trying to meet a boundary that is in line with a family value requires choices.  I think this is important.  Life is full of things not so good, but also  can be full of many great things, which can make it hard to choose.
  4. Boundaries help people grow and meet opportunities instead of complaining about problems.  Positivity promotes health!

So, without further ado,  here are a few steps to boundaries.

  1.  Figure out your family’s VALUES.  Which values do you want your children to internalize in order to be a “successful” (in whatever way that means to your family) adult?  
  2. What your values are will influence some of the areas you could place boundaries, such as:

Connection – with family members, extended family members, friends, peers?  How important are sibling relationships over peers?  Nuclear family over extended family?  How do you show respect in your family to each other?  What do the adults feel is respectful?

Sleep/Rest – Will there be bedtimes? Rest times?  Quiet times?  Is sleeping in okay?  On what days?  If you safely co-sleep with your littles, when does that stop?  What happens at night when children are older and awake and staying up late – are you all together, do you need to be with your teens at night, is it adult time?

Health Food/Eating – snacks allowed or not?  Can you eat in the living room?  What happens if a child doesn’t eat all of his or her food?  Sweets allowed or not?   Special diets and why?  Along this line, are physical activities important or not?

Chores – does everyone have to help with the nurturing of the home?  Is this only mom’s job?  What is the role of the other adults in the house? What are the children’s responsibilities and at what ages?

Outside Activities – whose activities count? Only the adults?  Only the children?  Both?  How?  How many? Are there days you must be home?  Are there limits on activities?  Some families seem to have a hard time staying home even one day, and some families seem to have a hard time leaving their home.  What is the balance?

Spiritual Practice/ Attendance at a place of worship – Important? Not important? What if it is important to the adults but not teenagers, etc.

Sibling Relationships – Important to spend time together or not?  Siblings before peers?  Lots of time away from home with peers or not?  At what age?

Intimate relationships -Starting with peers – how do we treat our friends?  How do we expect our friends to treat us?  What constitutes bullying?  Sleepovers or no sleepovers?  How many days a week with peers versus just with the family?  When children move into the teenaged years – dating?   Not dating?  What constitutes a healthy and respectful dating relationship?  (Did you know that ten percent of high school teens are reporting physical violence in their dating relationships in the United States?)  How to handle the physical side of intimate relationships?  At what age is dating allowed?  The use of technology in communicating in an intimate relationship and respect around this – what does that look like?

Technology – Allowed, not allowed, what age, what platforms?  Does the phone or computer have restrictions or rest times for devices or both? How old does a child have to be to receive the responsibility of a phone or computer?  How will they show that responsibility? Gaming or no gaming?

Holidays/Gift-giving:  How many gifts?  Extended family? What is the role of children with  extended family during get-togethers?  Included? The children weave and out?  The children go off together?

Homework/Homeschool – What are the boundaries around doing homework or schoolwork?

Those are just some areas I thought of; I am sure there are many more.  I would love to hear boundaries that you think of!

3.  When the boundary is met or unmet, what happens?  This is usually the part that parents equate with “discipline” (ie, punishment).  But is there more to it than that? I think there is because really discipline is authentic leadership and guiding your children and knowing how the boundaries you set are not arbitrary but  fit into your value system.  

Just food for thought on a Monday morning.

Blessings,

Carrie

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brave Parenting

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The time to be courageous in your parenting is now.  Brave parenting requires a sense of values and what to be willing to confront and endure in order to have those values live within our children.

If you know your values, then you can ask yourself, “Is what is going on with this child serving those values?  Will this child grow up to be an adult that embodies these values?  What can I do to faciliate these boundaries so these values have a better chance of being a dynamic principle in our lives?”

Sometimes brave parenting requires making hard decisions that are not popular with our children and teenagers, and in this day and age of parents wanting to be friends with their children, this seems more difficult than ever.

When I lose the forest for the trees in parenting, the big things I look at are

  1. Perspective. Would a mom of a now grown-up child think this is a make or break situation?
  2. Boundaries.  Have I been consistent, what are the boundaries? I have friends who cannot name ONE boundary their child has. This, folks, to me, doesn’t bode well for the teenage years.  There are boundaries in life.  They don’t have to be arbitrary or mean, but should organically grow out of your family’s values and love for your child.
  3. Strengths and weaknesses.  Many of you have smaller children, but I have a 16 year old.  So I constantly look at my older children and try to think ahead a bit.  What skills does this child with their personality and temperament really need in  order to succeed in their adult life?
  4. Will our relationship be overall preserved?  Nothing should be so big a deal that it should shatter our love, but I am okay with my children not liking me for short periods. I want to be their friend when they are all grown up, and I want to have fun together, but my job as a parent is bigger than just that.  I need to help guide them towards their own unfolding and their own discovering and yes, eventually their own life.
  5. Self-care.  This is usually the one I totally lose, and this month has been a super stressful and exhausting month.  Aggressive cancer in family member necessitating emergency travel, and emergency surgery for our horse who had colic.  We aren’t out of the woods yet, so I hope I can look at self-care again.  To me, one of the major components of self-care for homeschooling mothers might actually be just letting things go.  We can always find more school days at some point during the year!

How are you brave parenting this week?

Love,
Carrie

 

Why Did We Think Parenting Would Be Easy?

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Parenting is hard.  Some ages are harder than others.

It is messy.

It brings up triggers and baggage.

It brings up woundedness.

It can bring out our best side, but also our worst side.

It brings up differences with our significant other and magnifies them.

It is hard.

I think parenting is all of those things.  Why did we think parenting was going to be easy?

I think the more that we can acknowledge that things are different from when we grew up, but that development in and of itself is not different, is where we can start to heal and find the beautiful in the messy.  Finding that each child is an individual, but that development also takes a fairly predictable course can be comforting and exhilirating and helpful.  All at the same time.

I have posts about EVERY age from birth all the way through age 16 on this blog under the “Development” header.  You can find a lot of support there in those back posts. While I do not write as much regarding each specific age anymore, those posts are there for you.

Hang in there, parents.

Find the beautiful in the messy.

Find the beautiful in being a human being and in raising one.

Find the common ground with your significant other.

Find the lovely in the hard and the smooth inside all of those rough edges.

It is messy. Some children and personalities are honestly harder than others.  It is okay.   It is parenting.

Blessings, and love,

Carrie

 

Getting Ready for Winter!

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The temperature has finally dropped here in the Deep South. It feels much colder than it acutally is, because we have been living with temperatures above 85 degrees F for so many months.

This is a great time to take stock of what one needs for winter.  This is my checklist, and I would love to share it with you:

Do I have the supplies to make elderberry syrup?  (so, for me, that is essentially stinging nettle, yarrow, lemon balm, echinacea, elder berries and elder flowers along with spices and local honey)

Do I have the herbs to add to bone broth? (so, for me, that includes burdock and dandelion root and astragulus)

Do I need any other herbal tonics to get me through the winter?  I like the Urban Moonshine blend mentioned in Aviva Romm’s article here

Do I have our cabinet stocked with things for colds and flu?  Silver throat spray,  Theives Oil or a variation, other essential oils, homeopathic remedies, etc.

How (and where) is our outerwear ?  To me, this includes mittens or gloves, hats, warm socks, jacks, snow pants, and boots.  For kids, I still love LL Bean Boots, but I know everyone has their favorites.

Who needs woolens? I like to get mine from Green Mountain Organics.   If you are wondering about warmth in children, I recommend this article about “Warmth, Strength, and Freedom.”

Who needs long shirts or sweaters?

Do I have flannel sheets? Sleep is super important, and I think the winter months are a prime season to take advantage of sleeping longer.

Am I prepared to slow the rhythm of our week down? I think this is natural seasonal adjustment.  August, September, and October can be super busy here with marching band for our oldest and horse shows, but I find things in November and December can be calmer if we block it out that way, and then January and February tend to be fairly calm on their own.

Do I have crafting supplies and other inside fun at the ready?  One thing I ordered this week is three months of Happy Hedgehog Post. It was a gift to myself and especially our second grader to have some indoor fun.  Other ideas include having baking supplies on hand, wool, yarn, craft kits, art supplies, snuggly blankets for fort building.

Where are our beeswax candles and lanterns from past Martinmas festival celebrations?  These can make the school area especially lovely during the darker winter months.

When will I see people?  I feel tired and  am ready to withdraw after our busy three months starting school, but I would like to still see people.  I am thinking of hosting a hygge morning during January and February as mentioned in this article..

We have animals, so I also check what the animals might need. Our horses need sheets and blankets, our dog has little booties for icey conditions.  I try to make sure I have ordered enough horse feed and that we have toys on hand for our dog.

Please share with me the ways you get ready for winter!  I would love to hear all of your ideas!

Blessings,
Carrie

 

Let Me Tell You Your Mission (In Case You Forgot)

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One thing a friend of mine and I were talking about recently is that there is room in the adult world for all kinds of people with all their various quirks and personalities and temperaments.  The diversity of people is such a beautiful thing, and I know I am so grateful that different people want to do different jobs than I would want to do; that different people have different strengths and abilities; that different people even look different and live differently because I find so much beauty in all the varying cultures and faces of the world.  I love it!

So why do people act as if our sole parenting mission, and yes, especially in the middle and upper classes, is for our children to get into a good college and be on a college track?  I am not saying that education is not important.  It is important, but how can we balance this in a healthy way?

Having our teens stress themselves out to the point of having psychosomatic illnesses and fearing for the future and not wanting to grow up because being a teen is already stressful enough (so how stressful must adulthood be?) is not helping this generation.  ANXIETY has now taken over depression as something teenagers are dealing with.  According to this article in the NY Times, 62 percent of undergrads are reporting “overwhelming anxiety.”  There has been a doubling of hospital admissions for suicidal teenagers.  

So, exactly what happens when the push, push for the “good college” is acheived?  What happens in real life outside of this?  My point is that people (and teenagers) are made of more than just their academic portfolio.  There is space in the adult world for many people with their many likes and dislikes and interests and passions. In fact, the adult world probably needs you especially, teenager who is different.

So, parents,  let me tell you your mission in case you have forgotten.  You are here to support your teen and to help guide them.  If you see them putting such pressure on themselves to perform, how can you step in and help them? What will they really need in the adult world to meet their definition of success?  Is their definition of success even healthy? One of the many points in the NY Times article above is that parents are not always driving the anxiety of these teenagers anymore by pushing them, but that instead the teens are internalizing the anxiety themselves and pushing themselves relentlessly.  Health and social relationships are, to me, more important and deserve even more time than academic work.  

You cannot live their life for them.  You are here to help your teen unfold and be who they are going to be.

Life is messy.  Being a teen is messy .  Be supportive and be kind, because you may not know much of what your teen is dealing with at all.

When people ask me about my parenting and goals for my children, I essentially say I want them to be healthy and helpful human beings.  Human beings who are good and loyal friends and family members who will help others.  Human beings who are ethical and who do not divide their public and private lives.  Human beings who can relax and have fun, and yes, make a contribution to something greater than themselves and support themselves.  That is an exciting parenting mission.

Blessings and love,
Carrie